Macedonian Empire: A Visual History

The Macedonian Empire was the state built by Philip II, who turned a backward northern Greek kingdom into master of Greece by 338 BC, and his son Alexander the Great, who between 334 and 323 BC destroyed the Persian Empire and marched to the Indus. At Alexander's death in Babylon it covered about 5.2 million km2. It fell apart within a generation as his generals fought the Wars of the Successors, but it spread Greek language and culture across the Near East for a thousand years.

When it existed: the era ribbon

The bold bar is Macedonian Empire. The lighter bars are empires and wars from the same era and the same part of the world. Click any bar to jump to its page.

Territory ruled from Macedon

Timeline of the Macedonian Empire

1. 359 BC
   Philip II becomes king
2. 338 BC
   ChaeroneaMacedon masters Greece.
3. 336 BC
   Philip assassinatedAlexander succeeds.
4. 334 BC
   GranicusAlexander crosses into Asia.
5. 333 BC
   IssusDarius flees the field.
6. 331 BC
   GaugamelaPersia's last great army destroyed.
7. 330 BC
   Persepolis burned
8. 326 BC
   HydaspesVictory over Porus; the army mutinies at the Beas.
9. 323 BC
   Alexander dies in BabylonThe Wars of the Successors begin.

Philip's Macedon

Philip II inherited a kingdom under attack in 359 BC and made it the strongest state in the Balkans. He created the sarissa phalanx and Companion cavalry, seized Thrace's gold mines and, at Chaeronea in 338, crushed Athens and Thebes. The League of Corinth made him leader of Greece and he was planning to invade Persia when he was assassinated at his daughter's wedding in 336.

Alexander's conquests

Alexander, aged 20, secured Greece by razing Thebes and crossed to Asia in 334 with about 40,000 men. He won at Granicus, Issus (333) and Gaugamela (331), took Egypt (founding Alexandria), Babylon, Susa and Persepolis, chased Darius III to his death, and fought on through Bactria and Sogdia to the Punjab, defeating Porus at the Hydaspes in 326. His army refused to go further; he marched back through the Gedrosian desert and died in Babylon in June 323.

The empire divides

Alexander left no adult heir. His generals, the Diadochi, fought for 40 years; by 281 BC the empire had settled into the Ptolemaic kingdom in Egypt, the Seleucid Empire in Asia and Antigonid Macedon, with smaller states between. Greek became the common language from Egypt to Afghanistan, and Hellenistic culture shaped Rome, Judaism and early Christianity.

Related empires and wars

Chosen automatically by overlap in time and geography, plus a few hand picked connections.

Empires of the same era and region

• Achaemenid Empire (550 BC to 330 BC)
• Seleucid Empire (312 BC to 63 BC)
• Ptolemaic Kingdom (305 BC to 30 BC)
• Maurya Empire (322 BC to 185 BC)
• Greco-Bactrian Kingdom (256 BC to 125 BC)
• Magadha (600 BC to 320 BC)

Wars of the same era and region

• Wars of Alexander the Great (335 BC to 323 BC)
• Roman-Greek wars (214 BC to 148 BC)

8 surprising things about the Macedonian Empire

1. Alexander was tutored by Aristotle for three years and reportedly slept with a copy of the Iliad under his pillow.
2. He never lost a battle in 15 years of campaigning.
3. He founded about 20 cities named after himself; one, Bucephala, was named after his horse.
4. The Gordian Knot: told whoever untied it would rule Asia, he cut it with his sword.
5. Alexander's body was hijacked on its way home by Ptolemy and buried in Alexandria; its location has been lost since late antiquity.
6. The 'Alexander Mosaic' from Pompeii shows the moment at Issus when Darius turned to flee.
7. The Macedonian sarissa pike was up to 6 metres long, twice the length of a Greek hoplite spear.
8. Greek was still spoken in Bactria and northern India two centuries after Alexander.

Sources

• Alexander the Great Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Macedonia (ancient kingdom) Wikipedia
• Alexander the Great World History Encyclopedia
• Robin Lane Fox, Alexander the Great (1973) Allen Lane

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